A finish and a start

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Okay so today is the official beginning of autumn, whatever. I was fairly loopy yesterday morning, and surprisingly I didn't get tired until about seven p.m. I was able to stave off the yawns by starting a little 1.5" diamond cutie, pictured above. More about that, perhaps even in this post. First, however, I FINISHED MY NOVEL. Woo hoo and all that!

So let me just say that while I knew the end was in sight, I didn't imagine The End would arrive on a day when sleep was minimal, skies were (and still are) smoky, yet rain is on the horizon. I had hopes of completing this story maybe by Monday? Maybe. And that maybe is mostly due to not wanting to rush myself, as well as the drama, but more me. Taking one's time to wrap up a project is necessary, although a few of my books (and quilts) have been finished in a rather speedy fashion. As this novel is packed with alluded to details, it was a little tricky about what to wholly reveal and what to hint toward and what to spell out in full. Spoilers you understand, but suddenly around ten o'clock yesterday morning I found The End clearly within my grasp. Huh, I thought, that wasn't expected. But I didn't argue with the muse, Future Me or anyone else. I kept typing and there it was, my protagonist hoping to get back home in one piece with their sanity intact. Ba-dump-bump, Bob's your uncle, and there's another novel under my belt.

Yet when crafting a series, another novel in the can doesn't mean I move onto something different. Each story is unique yes, but these folks are going to be with me for a few years, unless I get hit by a bus tomorrow. Barring that, I'm in hip-deep with a variety of Humans and other species, lol, timelines bouncing all over the place. This isn't how I began my writing journey; standalones were my focus, until I stumbled onto Alvin Harris. That chap began my love affair with creating sagas, morphing into the massive tome that is The Hawk, which currently is available in three volumes, but if broken down into typical novel length works out to about ten books. Last year I published That Which Can Be Remembered, merely a three-book endeavor. As for the current series, which I refer to here as Four Corners, I'm looking at something about the size of The Hawk, give or take.... That remains unknown, Future Me isn't even proffering a clue. Which is for the best because if she had told me how ginormous The Hawk was going to be, I might have bailed out long before The End was apparent.

English paper piecing is a lot like writing a series, in that with all three I 'knew' the end, but not how to get there. Currently I have three different EPP quilt projects going, and am considering another, LOL! I'm not going to blather about that unless I decide it's definitely part of the rota. This happens to novels too; last November I wrote about 25K for NANOWRIMO then gave up. The story wasn't hitting all my sweet spots and I couldn't keep plugging away at it. I did the same earlier this year with my Alexandria EPP quilt. Both projects haven't been jettisoned however, who knows if/when I'll return to them.

Well, Future Me knows, but she isn't saying and I'm not asking. I have enough in front of me, and one more novel on my personal All I Have Written list. That's a nice feeling, in which I will bask for a few weeks, then back onto the noveling horse with Book 4 of the series!

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